Promo Products Boost Beverage Sales

College students are known for their ability to work hard and play hard. So it's no surprise that the makers of Code Blue, an all-natural recovery drink, wanted to target the college demographic in a recent marketing blitz.

 
In an effort to appeal to this important segment of the market, the company loaded up its brand-new Code Blue Recovery Ambulance with the drink and branded merchandise and traveled to Boston for CollegeFest, an annual back-to-school gathering for college students.

Code Blue wanted to build on the great feedback it received at its first CollegeFest appearance a year earlier, as well as reach incoming freshmen, expand its existing campus-rep program and add fans to its Facebook page, says Code Blue Founder and CEO Jeff Frumin.

Part trade show, part festival, the 25-year-old CollegeFest brings together more than 17,000 brand-loyal students and connects them with nearly 100 national and local brands; promotional items and prizes are given away, and live music performances entertain the crowds.

"Kids love the free stuff and leave with bulging swag bags," says Vincenzo Saulle, vice president of business development at Mr. Youth, the youth marketing agency that owns and organizes CollegeFest. In addition to elevating brand awareness, CollegeFest is a great way to discover students' likes, dislikes and how they respond to the brands that exhibit there, Saulle says. The event is always held in Boston, home to nearly 200,000 college students – one of the largest student populations of in the country.

The beverage sector is the most competitive sector at CollegeFest, says Saulle. "Kids are the right age for the beverages, and the show is a good place to give away large numbers of drinks to concentrated numbers of students," he says. Typically 20 to 30 drink brands, including energy drinks, waters and teas, exhibit at the show each year.

Code Blue's CollegeFest setup centered on the branded Recovery Ambulance, equipped with large coolers filled with ice-cold cans of the beverage. Reps handed out free medicine-cup samples of Code Blue, and every student who registered received a full can of the recovery drink. Every half hour, a drawing was held for a Code Blue Recovery Kit, containing branded medical scrubs, a T-shirt, a hat and a six-pack of Code Blue. Prizes of a semester's worth of Code Blue were also awarded. The Recovery Kits were very popular, and Code Blue gave students the opportunity to register on Facebook to win one.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 "prescription" flyer cards providing detailed information about the product, along with coupon books, were distributed at CollegeFest. There was significant Code Blue branded signage, and two of the three company founders attended, along with some campus reps and marketing staff. Four social-media reps carried branded Code Blue iPads to register students and take photos in front of the ambulance to post on Facebook. Students could comment and immediately share photos with friends.

Frumin says education about the product, especially the recovery concept, is critical to the success of Code Blue, which he calls a "healthier, more functional Gatorade. Students are interested in what is healthy." He notes that Code Blue is made with natural ingredients like vitamins C, B12 and B6, and has three times more electrolytes than Gatorade. In addition, it's the first ready-to-drink beverage containing sustamine, a liquid glutamine that aids muscle recovery. "Code Blue is not an energy drink," Frumin says. "Rather, it's more about hydration."
While the company focused on the sports-recovery message at CollegeFest, Frumin says, reps also told students they could use the drink any time they were dehydrated (read: hungover). Indeed, the informational hangtag on the Code Blue can reads, "Feel Better Faster."

The appearance at CollegeFest gave company sales a shot in the arm; sales doubled in nearly every account following the event, with some accounts witnessing a tripling of sales. Sales jumped 50% in the two weeks following CollegeFest, largely due to the brand's appearance there, students returning to campus and general Code Blue marketing efforts, says Frumin. In addition, Code Blue doubled its number of campus reps to some 50 students, and Frumin received "countless" inquiries via e-mail; most were along the lines of, "Hey, I saw you at CollegeFest, where can I buy you?"

T Shirt Helps Increase Attendance at Beer Fest-A&A Specialty

CASE STUDY OF THE MONTH

Organizer Bill Steigerwald had great results promoting the World Beer Festival in Columbia, SC, by using a creative combination of guerrilla marketing, social media and promotional merchandise. The festival celebrates the world beer culture and provides samples from almost 100 breweries, as well as educational sessions led by industry experts, local food and entertainment. ADVERTISEMENT Together with an agency, Steigerwald advertised the January event with an eight-week holiday blitz. Rather than just focusing its ad efforts on men, the team expanded its campaign to target women. One of the promotional products that helped get the word out was a T-shirt featuring the World Beer Fest logo and the line "Smart Women Drink Beer." "We were able to position within the campaign that smart women drink craft beer," says Doreen Sullivan, president of the agency. "We also created posters and shot glasses for the festival." Clearly the products to promote the event helped, as attendance at the beer fest was up 40%. .

Boosting Morale

Buyers use promotional products to draw in consumers and potential business partners. The top use of ad specialty items is for business gifts, according to a promotional products usage survey, with 69% of respondents saying they use products as holiday or thank-you gifts. This is followed by trade shows with 47% and customer acquisition at 40%. But close behind are employee incentive programs, with 39% of end-users reaching for promotional products to reward productivity or improve morale.

Solar Junction, a solar cell manufacturer based in San Jose, CA, has used a handful of ad specialty items in its four-year history, all of them for internal efforts to improve the workplace or employee morale.

"It has been a great way to reward our employees," says Diandra Weldon, marketing director for Solar Junction. "It has really been a unifying thing."

Weldon began by ordering reusable travel mugs after employees expressed a desire to use something more environmentally friendly than Styrofoam cups. While it began as a simple solution to employee concerns, the yellow mugs, emblazoned with the Solar Junction logo, have become a part of the company culture, given to every new member of the team as well as to consultants, often before they even receive their business cards.

A similarly practical motivation led Weldon to order a set of branded black polo shirts for the company's 30-plus employees. With a staff made up mainly of engineers who spend their time getting their hands dirty working on projects rather than going on sales calls, few paid much attention to what they were wearing; if board members visited the office or an event came up, some staffers found themselves scrambling for something appropriate to wear.

"We were going to our first conference, and didn't have a booth yet, so I said, ‘If we can all wear this same shirt, we will get some brand recognition out there,' " says Weldon. The shirts proved to be a big hit and continue to get regular use. "I have had to order several more because a number of the men have worn theirs out," she says.

To celebrate Solar Junction's anniversary recently, the staff went to a minor league baseball game that tied in a specially designed T-shirt as a souvenir. The employees were divided into six teams, with each team getting a different T-shirt. According to Weldon, some staffers were such big fans of the other teams' shirts that they ordered additional ones for themselves.

But the product that got the biggest response from the staff was a branded zip-up fleece jacket. The heating in the Solar Junction office is less than stellar, and the occasional chilliness had become something of a running joke in the office. So for the holiday party that year, Weldon ordered a warm, comfortable fleece jacket for each person.

"It got a great response – everyone got the joke," says Weldon, emphasizing that the jackets have since gotten plenty of use. "On days when board members visit, they can wear it and automatically have a nicer, more professional look."

Published in Successful Promotions

Junk Nobody Throws Out

Junk Nobody Throws Out
While waste disposal company 1-800-GOT-JUNK? is in the business of removing clutter from the businesses and residences it serves, there is one thing its customers never want to throw out: the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? branded dump truck toys used to promote the company. The blue Hot Wheels-style toy is a miniature version of the company's recognizable trucks, carrying its name and tagline, "The World's Largest Junk Removal Service."

Employees at the company's corporate headquarters and its more than 200 franchises in the U.S., Canada and Australia keep a number of the toy trucks on hand and give them out whenever an opportunity presents itself. Whether during office tours, on jobs at houses with kids or when meeting with prospective customers, the trucks have become ubiquitous branding tools for the company.

"I bring a bag full of them and I leave them everywhere – on my seat when I leave a plane, at restaurants – even when I leave my hotel room, I put the tip for the housekeeper in the bed of the dump truck," says Natalie Burgwin, public relations manager for 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, who makes decisions with the marketing department about all promotional initiatives.

The company keeps a warehouse full of the trucks and goes through 50 to 100 each month, according to Burgwin. "In deciding on the trucks for our promotional product, we really looked into what our company is known for," says Burgwin. "The answer is: our cute dump trucks. In the end, it was more about having fun with promotions and getting the idea across that we are a creative yet professional company."

While the toy trucks are the standard promotional product for 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, it also incorporates a number of other products into its marketing. The company's marketing team has started giving out squeezable "stress trucks" that are particularly popular with corporate clients who can keep them on their desks at work. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? also warehouses a huge number of refrigerator magnets, pens, mugs and lanyards that franchisees give away to create brand awareness in their communities.

From:  Successful Promotions